It’s hard not to root for a character this hilarious and cunning; let’s hope she has a few more misadventures in her future.
Asher’s two crime novellas feature con artist Olivia Jane Doe as she charms, cheats and hustles her way through Florida and Mexico.
The first novella is set in Fort Lauderdale and narrated by small-time grifter Parker, who has been running short cons at the local marina, where he works with his partner in crime, Dave. Parker meets Olivia when he falls victim to one of her hustles. She takes a liking to him and convinces him to ditch Dave and join her in a scheme to scam money from the owner of the marina. The story is a fun caper with snappy dialogue. There’s an early debate between Parker and Dave about the rules of rock-paper-scissors that’s especially funny. Olivia and Parker’s heist, however, stalls the plot rather than adding tension. There are so many crosses and double crosses that the storylines sag, and it’s difficult to care about who comes out on top. The second, stronger novella is narrated in the third person and reveals Olivia’s motivations. Set in Mexico, the tale opens as Olivia has just lost two of her partners in a con gone wrong. She’s buried nearly $1 million in the middle of the desert for safekeeping and needs to flee the country stat. Asher deftly handles the plot’s many twists, turns and flashbacks. As in the first novella, it’s the whip-smart dialogue that makes the story shine. It’s a joy to watch Olivia match wits with everyone from a Mexican crime lord to a flight instructor, whom she tries to talk into giving her a lift across the border. At one point she attempts to convince him to let her pilot the plane even though she’s never flown before. When the flight instructor tells her this plan is “suicide,” she responds, “No, it’s not…I’ve thought about suicide. This is my second, and slightly better option.”
It’s hard not to root for a character this hilarious and cunning; let’s hope she has a few more misadventures in her future.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: 233
Publisher: Dog Ear
Review Posted Online: Aug. 13, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 2013
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Sure to be a bestseller, but the guy’s phoning it in.
A lukewarm would-be potboiler of uninvolving intrigue about a kooky quartet of conspiracy theorists—one by the name of “Oliver Stone”—who witness the murder of a federal agent.
Almost 8,000 Americans have died in attacks on U.S. soil. Rocket-propelled grenades have pierced the White House, there’s been another prison fiasco in Afghanistan, a dozen soldiers are dying every day and the war has opened a new front on the Syrian border. Thus the author’s bleak imagining of the near future. Throughout, Baldacci (Hour Game, 2004, etc.) drops reliable twists, revealing the federal agent murder to be—surprise—a minuscule piece of a much bigger plot involving snipers, nukes, a presidential kidnapping and an even gloomier vision of the future. Baldacci is not a particularly graceful writer, e.g., “Like all Secret Service agents, his suits were designed a little big in the chest, to disguise the bulge of the weapon.” Worse is the author’s chronic inability to draw convincing characters. Scooby-Doo had villains more complicated than these; distinctive quirks of the characters, such as one wearing 19th-century clothing, make them only mildly interesting. Baldacci himself seems only partly engaged in the task here. He writes as if he imagines his typical reader to be a business traveler staring down a long layover.
Sure to be a bestseller, but the guy’s phoning it in.Pub Date: Oct. 25, 2005
ISBN: 0-446-57738-3
Page Count: 448
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2005
A smooth blend of suspense and romance. As ever, the author's trademark effortless style keeps a complex plot moving without...
Megaselling Roberts (River's End, 1999, etc.) goes to Napa Valley for the tale of an Italian-American family wine producers rocked by scandal and a series of murders.
Dynasty head Tereza Giambelli knows that her granddaughter Sophia is the only family member capable of running a multimillion-dollar wine business—and no one contradicts La Signora. It's just as well the lovely young woman is still single: Tereza has plans for her. The matriarch has recently married Eli MacMillan, the American founder of another famous wine company. Eli's grandson Tyler knows everything there is to know about producing wine, from the vineyard to the vat. Ruggedly handsome, intelligent and earthy, he's a perfect match for public-relations whiz Sophia—or so thinks Tereza. The two young people begin to work together; Tyler teaches Sophia the fine art of making wine and making love. But other family members hope to claim their share of the Giambelli fortune, and people start dying mysteriously, including Sophia's good-for-nothing father, Tony Avano. Long divorced from long-suffering Pilar Giambelli, Tony led an opulent, self-indulgent life that provides plenty of murder suspects. He might have been killed by the mob, or a jealous mistress, or his spoiled brother-in-law, Tereza's lazy son, who's produced a passel of brats with his foolish Italian wife in the hopes of making Tereza happy. Everyone has a motive, and nothing is what it seems, Sophia discovers, but Tyler stands by her. Then a bottle of tainted merlot kills a company exec. A tragic mishap caused by poisonous plants growing near the vines? Or deliberate product tampering intended to destroy the company? Sophia and Tyler will need to delve even deeper into the convoluted and sometimes unsavory history of the family and its three-generation business.
A smooth blend of suspense and romance. As ever, the author's trademark effortless style keeps a complex plot moving without a hitch.Pub Date: March 19, 2001
ISBN: 0-399-14712-8
Page Count: 432
Publisher: Putnam
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
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